[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem

I'm glad Eric managed to make some sense of this. Somehow two words disappeared in the editing, "rush *in* that it is *you* who yet lives..."
I think Eric makes my (small) point better than I did--how to imagine slaughtering people on the scale he describes? Thinking of those times in life when we have been out of control? Remembering an adrenaline rush? The historian's task requires a sympathetic leap of the imagination, which is not always possible. 

David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon

On Feb 25, 2008, at 10:11 AM, Eric Yost wrote:


but what it was like exactly how it must have been to sweat that

fresh sixty seconds out to catch your breath and let the realization
rush that it is you yet lives well then that exact instance i can
neither capture nor fake
Slaughter isn't always personal (except for the poor victim). Sometimes 
rush becomes routine.

Remember the account of Hannibal's victory over the Romans at Cannae?
After the double envelopment, the Carthaginians slaughtered Romans all
day long, and had to rest so as to get the strength to keep hacking away 
at the Romans.

Sort of like a butcher getting exhausted from cutting meat. Kill two
hundred Romans, rest a while, kill two hundred more.


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